Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

Apparently MadFrancis and I will be teammates.

There is a bit of concern, looking at this map. Is there really enough room for 2 nations in any of those start areas? You did say the map was "modified", but unless you modified it to greatly increase the province count in those little pockets, I foresee a lot of early game "friendly fire" Dominion kills.....

:confused:

(EDIT - I think the Faerun map would be awfully nifty.....)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

i'll play, although i'd like my teammate to be an irc-regular if possible just so i don't have to stress out about difficulty of communicating with them... also i might get someone to agree to be my teammate by asking in irc but who knows ...

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

is it possible to setup llamaserver to email a .trn file to TWO email accounts?


if possible i'd like my teammate to receive all my .trn files and i'd like to receive all of his.....

just to prevent half-stales and also make it easier to communicate about the map and the troops and such

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

What is a newbie regarding the "no two newbies" -rule? A person new to Dom3 MP, a person new to Dom3 PbEM MP, a person new on these forums, whatever the GM decides on ad hoc -basis?

Reason I ask is that I am trying to lure one of my friends from another forum to team-up with me, but, as we haven't played in team-games, we might be regarded as newbies and thus fail the application.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

Phalent, Apsophos:

What is your experience? You have a low post count and I'd prefer to see people with 3+ games here [but as long as we have free spots everyone is allowed to play].

Jarkko:

I think newbie is someone with less than 3 multiplayer games [or at least 1 game with end-game experience, some blitzes are a plus]. Someone could maybe make a test "Are you a newbie?" :) But if you know how communion [and reverse ones too] work, how to make and counter SCs etc you are not a newbie.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

Ok, then I think I am not a newbie according to those standards :D I am a slow learner, but I think I have figured out a thing or two during the pasts years playing Dom2 and Dom3 MP :p Now all I need is to get a partner :) Please give me time until today evening (European time) to give a definite answer :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 9 spots left]
 

We still have 8 more slots open, so they won't fill today :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 9 spots left]
 

If you want both players to get all the turn files you should set up a forwarding account and have the LlamaServer send turns to there. The forwarding account should then send the e-mail on to both of you.

For instance, you can get a free forwarding account here: http://ef.bigfoot.com/ef/en/infopage....moreinfobasic

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 9 spots left]
 

Fungalreason joins forces with Ossa

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

I am currently playing in 4 games on llamaserver, been eliminated from two other (my first two). Phalent and I played a couple of short games to show him the basics.
I would say I'm still newbish and Phalent even more so. If you fear that such newbishness is a severe threat to game balance, we would accept to team with someone else (well, I would, but I think Phalent would be interested in a mentor/apprentice team so he could better kick my a** in our private games).

What are you afraid of? Us being swallowed early by a single team?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 9 spots left]
 

Apsophos:

Yeah, I am afraid of so called "easy targets". But if you have played some MP it's fine. I'd advice picking some familiar nations though, you can probably get preference for them over some more experienced players. And the best place to learn fast is using irc channel and playing fast games :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 9 spots left]
 

i'm interested. want to find a teammate who's regularly on IRC or IM though.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

me and moderation can be a team

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Ah well, looks like I can't lure anybody into this. Too bad :( I'll be following this thread though :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

So, no one else is concerned about shoehorning 24 people into this map? The start locations are perfect.... for one person. 2 will have as much trouble managing their dominion, as they have deciding who gets what territories to start.....

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

the whole three preferences thing is highly unclear... what are the rules governing this? are we to submit as specific combinations 3combination choices? and make sure not to re-use any nation more than once there-in? additionally even this method is likely to result in some people being unable to get any of there preferences? should the preference list size be expanded? will you randomly assign nations to people who don't get there choices? will it be invalid to submit as your preference for example :gath/jomon : gath/maverni : gath:ma argatha ... because doing this is almost forcing zeldor to give you gath? ... if only half of the nations get their preference will you allow the other nations to submit new preference choices? it would be a shame to assign so many nations randomly?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

this map is absolutely huge and oversized for 12players i think thats why zeldor thinks it can work for 24...




also maybe the people should list there preferences publicly... that way people can choose to compete for preferences with others and risk not getting any of their top 3... and/or people can carefully make sure that they make their 3rd preference a really unpopular one so they are sure to get it... ?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Not sure about "absolutely huge", but I am not concerned with the provinces/player. If you download the map and examine it, the teams will start in their own little pocket, mostly surrounded by impassable mountains. Those pockets are laid out to be great for 1 person to do their initial expansion, second fort, etc. But for two people..... It looks troublesome.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

are you sure you are looking at the larger version of the map, w/ all the caves? its not a pocket then, surrounded by impassable mountains, as the mountains are tunnelled.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

337 total provinces.

It has nothing to do with the "size". It's laid out for 12 people - and to force early wars on the land nations already. With teams in each nook, the provinces adjacent to your capital, will be adjacent to those adjacent to your partner's capital. In turn, on the other side, your adjacent provinces will touch those that are adjacent to your nearest enemy.

There are ~50 provinces in the caves. So, if one teammate gets the bottom of the nook (5 provinces), and then has no avenue to grow except the caves, he'll be able to hope to have 9 provinces before he is forced to war in order to expand.

Just seems that this sort of sardine-like layout heavily favors rush nations altogether.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Sounds like a fun game.

I haven't looked at the nation prices that much, but is it even possible to buy two rush nations for one team?

Besides, it wouldn't be a team game if a team shouldn't play together, instead of like two loosely allied nations.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

It's supposed to be tight, but not extremely. It is afaik 14 provinces there, including 2 capitols, and there are 2 provs between capitol, which is standard in team games. You should think about potential problems, including dominion spread. Map should be ready soon, so you will all have chance to test it and suggest any changes. And don't forget gold is set to 150%.

About nation picks - yeah, you can put one nation 3x, but you should add in that situation 1-2 more alternatives without that nation. I understand that there can be only 3 combinations with 8 point nations. I will resolve any problems when they occur, I doubt that so many people will really want to play just one of that nations.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

In case someone didn't notice - there was minor tweak, both gold and resources are at 150% base now.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

in my usual role of the voice of criticism, I should state that increased resources ALWAYS results in decreased diversity. This is because the competing demands within as organism, an ecosystem, or within a nation, and a battle betwixt nations or much easier to meet, and so survival falls upon some least common denominator which all things evolve towards.

In the royal island simulations, unlimited resources actually resulted in the complete death of all organisms, as the oscillations of population explosions between two populations, prey and predator, would magnify to the point that one population would go extinct, and the other would die off too. These oscillations would magnify so much because there was no resource limitation to bound them.

When ecosystems are flooded with typically bounding resources (such as nitrogen) it results in an explosion of the least common denominator, organisms designed soley to consume resources and reproduce; aka microbes of some sort. These explode in the population and use up ALL the resources (including oxygen) and kill off the more diverse collection of species who have all evolved to compete in some way for limited resources.

in our little simulation of nations here, the competing demands within nation design will be much easier to meet (resources, gold, magic gems, ect), and all nations will be able to meet these demands with much less, and be free to focus all their design on the least common denominator: absurd magic power (aka the 'mentok' phenomenon; rock, paper, scissors, mentok: mentok beats all). Things like luck, production, and gem producing spells are considerably devalued, and things like dominion and magic paths become more valued. There is really no point in considering a Turmoil/Production/Luck strategy because with such high magic the luck is pointless, and with such high resources so is production, all we need is more gold and more dominion and more magic paths; and this is what all pretender design will shift towards. Less diversity.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

I am not sure if the analysis of an ecosystem translates properly. Nations do not fill niches, they are all directly competitive by nature. There is no possibility for one to flourish without impacting the others.

Sure, you will see less light infantry perhaps, but with a relative balance between resources and income, people will tend to build armies in the way that is most effective, not the most pleasing. That is to say that while it may be attractive to only build your strongest elite unit, if you don't have any actual cheap chaff, then the enemy's mages will kill your expensive troops first.

Certain nations will still favor Productivity. There is still a balance between gold/resources, so high resource nations will still compete in troop count with low resource nations. It think the only thing that will lose relevance is Luck, as it fails to scale according to income levels.


Anyway, how did you know I was going to go with a Mentok pretender? :shock:

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Luck is much better in CBM.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

an ecosystem analogy translates perfectly. this is not something that is one way in one system but not another. It is an iron law: increasing resources decreases diversity. When nothing is forced to adapt to compete for resources, nothing will. There is no need for justice in a perfect world. When you keep bailing them out, they keep ****ing up. Change and diversity comes from having less, not more.

The process of creating a nation is itself an internal struggle, as competing needs within a nation vie for points (gold, resources, gems, magic paths, dominion, ect.). With some of these bounds removed, all the points will simply shift into others. Big blesses are the most benefited, because they were usually bound by gold and resources. Atul already lamented in IRC that the problem with team games is they invariably end being a BIG bless nation just getting fed by their teammate. The money, resource, gem multipliers in this game only further benefit that type of team design because now the blessing nation doesn't even need to worry about resources, and the combination of high money multiplier and magic sites means there is no point for a luck scale because gems will already be plentiful and income from luck isn't going to be multiplied, while other income will.

with typical bounds on nations lessened, others take their place (dominion and magic, just like I said above). All nations will now simply have more points to invest in these things; thus all pretenders design strategies will begin to converge toward them.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

I am pretty confident that you will find that any player who tries to go only for the biggest and best in this scenario, is likely to fall sooner than one who remains adaptable, and is as creative as possible in their application of force.

Changing from the default settings WILL create different dynamics. However, it's a bit silly to make the assertion that while the game is fairly well balanced, that it is balanced out in such a way that altering the settings (in ways that are meant to be able to be altered) in some way wrecks the game as a whole.

I would consider that more of a personal problem, than a flaw in the system. Just as it seems that my thoughts about the map, are personal issues. :rolleyes:

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

i don't think it will reduce fun... i was just saying for the sake of saying...

don't you feel more cognizant of the world around you now?

at any rate, it is all just another dimension, guessing how these dynamics may shape up is ultimately what determines winners... that and finding new ways to specialize and exploit the team opportunity that are not readily perceivable... perhaps specializing in not specializing.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

The discussion about resources is as old as dominions. There is no way to get a good value, ever. There are many ideas to improve productivity, but rather none of them will appear before Dom4. I think that nations that will take Sloth3 now would have it with resources on 100 too. And nations that decide to take Productivity will get a nice boost and will be able to field really many troops, especially with CBM [it reduces mostly gold cost for high res units from what I remember].

Overall goals of setting was to make game more dynamic. Big armies, many magic sites, a lot of bloodshed. And even with gold at 150 you will find there isn't so much of it. I had 2 games on that map with standard gold settings and even then it would've been better with 125-150 gold setting. But plains will generate a lot of gold.

And when we are on that subject - I am still working on the map, I will probably redo most of .map file as editor will probably change prov numbers [I have to redo some borders, maybe add few provs]. Plan is to add 8 towns on plains [around 20k pop], all with special recruitables [4 of them will be Sages]. On the central island there will be Throne of the World, Ancient Forge and 2 more sites [one of the with cool indies, maybe even Lore Masters]. Also that pretender chassis put over there spawns a lot of Soldiers of the West [or East?], so expect 500-1000 troops there if it stays unconquered for longer time.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

instead of increasing gold and resources to 150% why not just take 50% of all the provinces in the game evenly distributed and slice them in half to create two similar provinces? or some such... achieving the same effect of increased resources while retaining omnirizon's ecosystematicism

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Celestial General. 5 solid t'ien ch'i hvy inf/turn

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

I have no idea what either one of you are saying.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

I speak jive, maybe I can help.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Huh? Not me, might have been archaeo. I have no experience with team games, and while big bless nation and its forge female dog underling is a strong combo, I'm not totally sure the bless nation could hold all fronts together when under attack from several directions.

What big resources and gold do (I assume), is mainly downplay the role of early SC pretender. It isn't said the "standard" settings would be optimal for different strategies either, proportion of gold/resources has changed heavily with each iteration of Dominions series.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

We still have some places left, I hope we can get them filled that week :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Looking for teammates:
- Omnirizon
- JimMorrison
- Jarkko[/quote]


I'd be interested in playing. Looking for teammate.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Ok, we need 6 more then, assuming Jarkko is still interested.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Zeldor,

I know others have broached problems with the current system. First, let me say I will enjoy it if the game makes.

However, I'd really like to suggest that we go on a point bidding system. Points that you bid on the race - must be left unused on your pretender.

Additionally, perhaps you could set up 'kingdoms' on the map - 1 or maybe 2 territory size kingdoms - and let people bid on those as part of the starting position as well.

Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5 Team 6
Abysia=EA
Abysia-MA
Abysia-LA
Agartha EA 25* 24 22 22
Agarth-MA 3*
Agartha-LA
Arco-EA 6*
Arco-MA
Arco-LA
Ashdod-MA
Atlantis-EA
Atlantis-MA 10 9
Atlantis-LA
BandarLog-MA
Bogarus-LA
Caelum-EA
Caelum-MA
Ctis-EA
Ctis-MA
Ctis-LA
Eriu-MA
Ermor-EA 14
Ermor-MA
Ermor-LA
Formoria
Hinnom-EA 6
Jomon-LA
Jotunheim-MA
Kailasa
Machaka-MA
Man-MA
Man-LA
Marverni
Mictlan-EA
Mictlan-MA
Mictlan-LA
Midgard-LA
Niefleheim
Oceania-EA
Oceania-MA
Oceania-LA
Pan-EA
Pan-MA
Pan-LA
Patala-LA
Pythium-MA
Pythium-LA
R'lyeh-EA
R'lyeh-MA
R'lyeh-LA
Saromatia-EA
Shinuyama-MA
Tien-EA
Tien-MA
Tien-LA
Tir
Ulm -EA
ULM -MA
Ulm -LA
Utgard-LA
Vanheim-EA
Vanheim-MA
Yomi

Essentially.. let everyone bid until everyone is satisfied. You only pay the points for your winning bid. So in this case Team one wins agartha, but has to leave 25 points unallocated on pretender design.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Yeah, I am still here.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

I disagree with bidding points for pretenders - the actual application would work very poorly. We did test runs on this a while back and it was a headache mutiplied by a disaster.

I'd be fine with bidding something else - especially something that could be modded using map commands.

Suggestion:
Everyone has 500 pts to bid, you bid independently on two lists of nations, but you draw from the same 500 pts for each list and both partners of the team get the same starting stuff.

For each pt you don't spend, you start with 1 gold.
For every *full* 200 pts you don't bid, you start with 1 months gem income from your capital.
If you have more than 200 unbid points, for every *full* 100 pts bid past that, you start with +50% to your starting army.

If your list is exhausted without you winning a bid on any nation, you pay 0 points for a random nation among those left over.

Since a team game needs fixed start locations anyway, this could be handled with map commands and wouldn't require any communication back and forth with the players.

It would also have a more desirable effect, to my mind - weaker nations would get to start with gems and armies to jumpstart their defense, rather than weakening stronger nations (which makes early expansion harder and slows the entire game down.)

Thoughts?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

I think we will stay with points. There are about 50 nations for 24 slots. For good bidding we'd need 30 nations max. Because with 50 nations you'd be able to easily get very good nation as a 2nd, so no problem with bidding like crazy for 1st. And I think that flaws of bidding pretender points were explained clearly enough, so I won't repeat it :)

P.S. We still need 6 more players.

P.P.S. Tomorrow I will show a map for tests [version with all provs and borders, but without magic sites and garrisons], so you can see how it will work [and find any mistakes that I can correct before putting magic sites and garrisons].

Some cool preview from earlier stage:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26.../teamarena.jpg

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Interesting. :shock:

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 7 spots left]
 

Yeah, I managed to get 18 provs per team in starting area. Caves are still not there. I will make borders on plains in a way that will give 4 provs between caps [so your cap - indie prov - garrison - garrison - indie prov - enemy cap]. So map will have few more provs, hard to say exactly how many, as I didn't process the map with map editor yet.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - only 6 spots left]
 

I'm really looking forward to this. I have been playing with 1-3 pts nations and .. oddly enough finding strategies to hold their own.. fun as hell.

Still need a partner tho

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

Just pointing this out again.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - only 6 spots left]
 

Ok, updating now :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - only 5! spots left]
 

I would like to sign up.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - only 5! spots left]
 

Denisius:

What is your experience?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - only 5! spots left]
 

I actually think I'm going to bow out of this game. It's seeming to be just a little more complex than I'm going to have time to commit to thinking about.

I've got a lot going on right now, and I hate playing a game that I can't take time to think through.